


Into the Loop

by archipelago41



Category: Cable and Deadpool
Genre: Askani Traditions, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Schrödinger's Canon, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-18 11:08:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28742256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archipelago41/pseuds/archipelago41
Summary: The one where Wade accidentally proposes a bunch to Nate, and it really does not change a lot.
Relationships: Aliya | Jenskot/Nathan Summers, Nathan Summers/Wade Wilson
Comments: 24
Kudos: 40





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my love letter to Split Second, and if it comes to bite me as an eternal WIP, I will own it.
> 
> Also. Tagging is hard.

Nathan Dayspring is too young to properly be called a man when a freshly-materialized man takes blaster-fire for him in a market. Nathan Dayspring is old enough to be the eternal enemy of oppressors. He is old enough to kill, and old enough to have men die for him. He wasn't even supposed to go to the market today; it was convenient. No longer convenient.

"Keep up!" Tetherblood is by his side as they run. They can't stop, not even to figure out what the body on the ground is. "And really? You think?"

When he and Tetherblood are a safe distance away, Nathan insists, “Well, there _was_ an assassin.”

“Just not the guy who appeared out of thin air,” T-Blood rebuts, using his hand to wipe the sweat from his brow. His dark skin gleams with it where it beads and escapes his headscarf. They're at least three scanner-ranges away from the market, and they can slow down for a more leisurely path back to base. “You think the assassin was for him?”

“No,” Nathan replies, grimly, and he opens and closes his technometal fist. “He was just in the wrong place and time.”

“Or the right one, Dayspring.” T-Blood tosses Nathan a flask of either warm clean-enough water or warm milk. “Can't say I'm too cut up it was a stranger and not you.”

They definitely shot the man. Many times. That should have been Nathan. He leaves a moment of silence. “I'm not sorry for still standing, but….” What was there to say? That people have always been protecting Nathan and that he needs to be worth it—needs to be the Dayspring else every sacrifice means nothing? 

“A toast to the man dumb enough to get between the Dayspring and a blaster,” Tetherblood half-jokes, but his flask is raised. 

“And may he be the only one,” Nathan half-murmurs, but he uncaps the flask and toasts him all the same. The beads around his neck clink when he takes a swig.

That should have been the last time he saw him. Normal people don't get back up after one energy blast, let alone five.

It's never simple when there's time travel involved.

When Nathan marries Aliya, he does it in the Askani way. 

They're fresh from a battle, if fresh means two days post-skirmish. The light through Aliya's hair is still dazzling. There's no big ceremony, no weaving of flowers or embroidered robes. No one has time for that. 

There are quiet times, and there are non-quiet times. The low fires around camp dim. They didn't lose anyone in the last raid, and Flintshard's cracked ribs only left him out of combat and would heal. It is, maybe, the most peaceful moment they could get; the stars above glint against the dark, and he settles down besides Aliya. 

He reaches for her.

Her hand slips easily into Nathan's, distracted, even, by her conversation with her sister. Hope sits on Aliya's other side, their heads pulled close, almost certainly conspiring. 

Tetherblood throws a stick at Nathan. It bounces ineffectually into the dirt. “Something in the clouds? Thinking gets you into trouble.”

“And leave you without a job to keep me out of it?” he says, grinning. “Never.”

“Don't put that on me. That's hers, now.” He gestures to Aliya, crossing his arms. 

Nathan takes a moment to breathe. He winks at Tetherblood and motions him to be quiet and he means it.

That's all he needs. Tetherblood is his shield-brother. Aliya's sister is by blood and battle.

“Aliya,” he says, and she turns her head.

Life is too short, and celebrations like these are too precious and private to worry about anything else, and Nathan trips over his own tongue when he says the words. The Askani way is simple: you propose and wait for an answer.

“We're married,” she agrees, smiling. Her voice is soft, and it's the quiet acceptance and repetition of an acceptance. Aliya laughs before calling out, louder, “We're married!” to the clan in recognition before kissing Nathan.

Nathan can't wipe the grin off his face. It's done. Tetherblood manfully and lovingly tries to put him into a headlock, and they grapple playfully.

“Really, you let him ask first?” Hope says, though there's a smile on her face, too. She hugs her sister. “I'm ashamed of you, sister.”

Aliya laughs. “Next time I get you a new brother, I'll ask. How about that?”

“Replacing me already?” Nathan teases, but he does put an arm around her anyway.

“Name your firstborn after me,” she says, loftily. “That will make up for it.”

“You were nervous,” Aliya teases, later, in their tent. Her hand trails on Nathan's shoulder. “You'd think you didn't have hordes after you.”

“No, but it was the first time I'd asked someone.” He frowns. “And it's not hordes. I don't have hordes of proposals.”

“But you've been asked? When?” Aliya's curious eyes could bore through Nathan's metal side, he swears.

Nathan denies even being able to blush, but she can read him, both body and mind. 

“How'd you say no?” she continues, snuggling close to him. 

“I didn't answer,” he admits. “It doesn't matter.”

“Are you saying I married a man with an open engagement,” she gasps, slapping him playfully. “Who was it?”

“It doesn't matter,” he insists. 

“Tell me! Do I have to fight Dawnsilk for your honor?" She continues with the guesses. “Jon? Tetherblood?”

“Are you going to list everyone we know?” Nathan shakes his head. “None of those. I don't even know his name.”

“A mystery, huh? Let me know if you ever see him again,” she says, laughing. “I'll answer for you. Any other suitors I need to know about?”

There's only been the one who's ever asked Nathan, and the only person Nathan's ever proposed to is right beside him, so he's pretty sure when he kisses Aliya and says no.

Nathan Dayspring is always in danger. He's done his best. There's always someone else to fight, and he thinks, sometimes, he needs the fight. 

He shields with his left side. The hard lines of techno-organic flesh are more forgiving of damage than what's left of his flesh and blood. The clang of energy hitting him stings, but not too badly. He's fine. He's clear. Everyone is clear. 

Everything is not fine. There's smoke around them, and it's hard to breathe, let alone think. He could reach out and suffocate it, but where is it coming from? 

It's gone, in a moment that lasts five years.

When Nate realizes he's alive, all he can see is a red and black mask with two white slits where eyes should be. There's pressure against Nathan's flesh side, and there's just chunks of unfamiliar—yet familiar—red armor in Nathan's peripheral vision. 

“I know you,” he says, unexpectedly. His mouth feels like cotton. “Why do I know you? You know me?”

“We're married, honey,” his unexpected backup says, mouth moving underneath the fabric, and his accent is strange but comforting. He's also speaking Olde English. “Of course I know you.”

Married. He knows that word. He knows what it's supposed to mean. The phrase in the common tongue would be— A flush rises up to Nathan's face. It's the first time he's been proposed to. What does he even want Nathan to say? What does Nathan say, to that? Is he supposed to answer immediately? 

“Thank you for the assist,” Nathan mumbles, and he trips over the language he hasn't spoken in years. This guy just saved his life, so it must be the need to affirm life. Nothing else. It might be the blood loss, but Nathan can't pinpoint the moment he leaves.

By the time Nathan gets loose-lipped enough while recuperating to ask Tetherblood if someone in a red and black mask and red armor seems familiar, Tetherblood lifts up his flask in a silent toast. 

“Thinking heavy on losses, huh?”

“Maybe,” Nathan assents. 

“Just because you're a bigger target now doesn't mean you have to throw yourself in the way, ” Tetherblood says, scratching his unkempt beard.

“Are you calling me fat?” 

“Fathead? Absolutely.” T-Blood exhales. “You know you're important. I don't need to swell your head. But don't go throwing yourself in the line of fire because you don't want someone else doing it for you.”

Nathan concludes it was a hallucination. Maybe a psychic projection. There wasn't anyone there when Tetherblood found him.


	2. Chapter 2

Nathan has enough ghosts haunting him that it's nothing to add another one, and at least this one is helpful. He pulls Nathan's ass out of the fire a couple more times, and if he's a face to Nathan's guilt at not being at the right place and time, it's a lesson to be better next time. Sometimes his own mind surprises himself.

Like when he sees the ghost in the body armor pick up Nathan's charged psimitar and uses it to send psychic energy behind them, arcing into a protective dome while also stabbing two dog soldiers with the sharp end. There's no backlash. While you didn't need to be a very strong psi to use it, there needed to be an affinity, and Nathan's been charging that with his own volatile spare energy for ages. 

“Who taught you that?”

“You do. In the future,” he says, and he'd know that voice anywhere. “I'm a time traveler." 

He breaks out into a huge smile, somehow visible underneath the mask. “Oh man, that's great. I've been waiting to say that!”

Nathan takes this in. It makes sense. He saw him die but only the once. He shouldn't tell him how he dies, but he probably knows, if he's saving Nathan's skin. 

“Well, ” he breathes. “I taught you well.”

For all that the Askani know that the timeline is sacred, there's very little on the actual time traveling. But it makes sense. 

They all know that you don't mess with the time line. What is, is. It's not their place to ask about their own future. 

Time travel suddenly seems so much more plausible. Nathan asks Professor some important questions. Blaquesmith has some answers, but he doesn't have all of them. He was always meant to be able to travel through the flows of him, as Mother Askani—Rachel—did in her own fashion.

As the ghost who keeps saving Nathan's life does. A dead man saves Nathan's life over and over, and when Nathan narrowly avoids death, he wants to memorizes the shape of him. 

So he does. His ghost never minds Nate staring at the corded muscle under his armor and thin undersuit. Sometimes this dead man walking goes in just the suit, and his muscle definition is never less than impressive. 

A time nexus behind some waterfalls piques Nathan's attention. He has Tetherblood and Blaquesmith with him, and he must go back. The number of enemies against Nathan seem endless, so he must be doing something right. There's always going to be people who try to stop him. If he can't go back in time, who can?

It almost kills him. His helpful ghost shoots the controls, loosening and stopping the pull of his molecules apart, and the recoil sends him to the wall. Tetherblood and Blaquesmith rush to Nathan's side. 

"He saved me," Nathan exclaims. This man swept in and destroyed the controls, and no one could have predicted that they'd be dangerous. The console smokes. “You saw that? He did that?”

“You're heavy, ” Tetherblood complains, even though he's very willingly supporting 3/4s of his best friend while Blaquesmith takes the least. “What are we feeding you?”

Nathan takes a breath. “But you saw him teleport out? Blue light? ”

“Yeah. He's saved your ass twice, Dayspring. You owe him a nice drink.”

“More than twice,” he corrects, idly. Ser-Not-A-Ghost has saved his life many more times than that. 

Oath, this man was wasted on the teenage Nathan.

There's no good way to avoid it, not when Nathan knows he dies then, years ago. His strange protector is not just a figment of Nathan's imagination. Tetherblood saw him too. He's real. He's alive, for now, and Nathan still doesn't even know the stranger's name. 

He learns that, of course, by nearly dying. 

Nathan can use telekinesis to fly. He also knows how to swim. It doesn't do a thing when he's thrown into deep water without him bracing for it, and he is metal and muscle. He sinks, naturally.

“I'm not keen to be a widower, so can you just handle yourself for two minutes?" complains a voice that Nathan's starting to know means things are okay, for now. “You marry a heavy tank and you just pay and pay for it.”

Gloved hands slowly, slowly drag Nathan up from water. Nathan splutters out water and pettily does not help them by going limp and generally being as heavy as he can be. He almost drowned, which he'll reflect on later, and he's pretty sure he just got proposed to again. 

The helpful but absolutely shameless ghost in front of him drops him on the riverbank. “I think I just dislocated something. Metal Wheaties must be heavy.”

Nathan glowers, but he has to say, “Thanks" because his mother taught him some manners. 

A grin creeps up under the ghost's mask. “That's weird. Who let you be polite and appreciate dear old Deadpool?”

Deadpool. Deadpool is a real person, and he was a time traveler. Is a time traveler. Nathan knows how Deadpool dies, but he keeps seeing how he lives. He's egotistical and babbles nonsense, but his aim is always true. He fights like a man with only one thing to lose, and that thing is Nathan. 

It's too much. 

Nathan lives a dangerous life, and it would be reckless to assume he makes it out okay. But knowing that Deadpool will save him if he makes a mistake lets him make bolder plans. He's still a young man when he learns that the people counting on him do not have that luxury. He's the Dayspring, so when he slags up to the worst degree, he gets Deadpool's smoky voice crooning in his ear and proposing to him, implying that they're partners in life. He trusts Deadpool--how could you not, when you get your own personal hero?

When Nate fucks up and gets clanmates injured or killed, they don't get that. The Askani'son has to be their savior.

It's not like Nathan hides Deadpool from Aliya. There's nothing to say if he's just a ghost. Deadpool doesn't live to be an old man. Knowing that he's alive now (relative to Nathan) and dead later (relative to Deadpool) makes it easier to just enjoy his continued presence in Nathan's life without worrying about anything. He's loyal and strong and funny. 

Nathan complains about the proposals to Aliya, who is really the only one who he can trust to only laugh at him about it and not tell a soul. He doesn't always propose. But Nate can't ignore when Deadpool slices a bear's head off for him and says something about a marriage anniversary. The number of times he calls Nathan pet names or husband alone sound more earnest than like a joke. 

“Have you tried telling him you're married? And would like to keep just one wife?”

Well. About that. He hasn't. Nathan never answers. He wonders if it'll break him. He doesn't want Deadpool to stop saving his life. And he likes the easy way Deadpool has no reservations on getting into Nathan's personal space. It's unearned affection, and it's different from how people see him as the Dayspring. Even Aliya is prone to that, sometimes.

He doesn't want it to be awkward. 

“So,” Aliya asks, conspiratorially. She doesn't know that anything Nathan does can mess up his own timeline. “Are you marrying him or leading him on?”

Nathan groans.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part cuts to the future a bit. The story wanted to be *time travel* and *nonlinear*. Rude.

Nathan's used to Wade showing up unannounced. He's not sure he even truly believed in time travel until Wade waltzed into his life bathed in blue light and outfitted in red. Time travel is beyond the ken of ordinary men; it is the purview of X-Men and well-remembered powers, and Nathan is supposedly one of those. Admittedly, Nathan is not a very good Askani, but he thinks that's justified. He has to make decisions, and he prioritizes making sure there is a world left. He gets the job done, and the sacred timeline—the one that makes him Cable and everything that implies—needs nudging. He cannot leave the past to be terrorized by his enemies. 

Wade'll always be there.

It's still a bit of a surprise when Deadpool breaks into X-Force's library, takes down Nathan's kids, and points a gun to Nathan's head. It takes Nathan by surprise enough that he does need the help to take Wade down. 

“Wade,” Nathan says, after he orders Dom and his teenage militia (who are absolutely in desperate need of more field exercises) outside. He can handle Deadpool by himself. “Cut it out. I don't have time for this right now.”

He can always make time for Wade, but he would like to deal with less property damage. And injuries. Nathan is not a stranger to violence, but Wade's casual and almost-friendly violence is a far cry from when he means to kill or grievously harm.

Nathan knows him well enough to tell that that was the latter, and while Wade can be bought, there are only a very few number of things that can pay him to take down Nathan.

“I never told you my name, what the fuck,” Wade hisses, through the pain of a healing back. His mask curls up in a snarl, and his mouth always heals first so can get an insult in. “You look me up on the merc yellow pages? You a fan? Doesn't mean I'll let you off, but I'll sign something for you.”

This isn't—it can't be—some convoluted plot to make sure Nathan dies here and now. That's not Wade's MO. He doesn't care about timelines, and somehow, things just work out around him. Nathan accepts that he himself will die one day, but he has so much to do. That isn't here or now. If it has to happen one day, he'll see it.

Wade likes dramatic gestures. Nathan likes the reactions he gets from them. It's worked spectacularly well before.

“A fan,” he repeats. “Of a sort.” _Try your husband,_ Nathan narrowly stops himself from 'pathing to Wade. Falling back into banter is easy; keeping the edge of his telepathy away from poking the sharp corners of Wade's mind is like Nathan stopping himself from relaxing, and he's good at that. “You could say that.”

“Well, I don't get many of those. Is that why the private audience? Wait, wh—”

When he's properly got Wade's hands secured, Nathan kisses him. First, once through the mask, and then rolling up his mask to give him a proper kiss hello. The texture of his lips and mouth is familiar, and Nathan uses everything to his advantage. Wade doesn't kiss back, not even clumsily. He definitely doesn't know Nathan, and even when he has memory problems, Wade's body _always_ knows Nathan. 

Except now, when he doesn't. It hits Nathan that Wade is young—it's almost unbelievable, especially when he's always been this unfathomably ancient and ageless constant in Nathan's life.

“You get off on kissing bound men? That supposed to make me want to kill you less? I've ripped off limbs for less!” Wade jokes, but only to deflect. Nathan can hear a little bit of a sigh in his lovely voice. He clearly didn't kiss Wade hard enough. “The whole look just screams control freak kinky. You're that type of fan? Didn't think I got those. I bite, for one.”

Nathan moves to roll off the rest of Wade's mask. Cornered, he bites out a curse and then follows it with a glib remark. “You don't want to see my face. It'll ruin the fantasy."

He runs a finger over lumpy skin.

“Yours or mine?” It really has been too long since he last saw Wade. Maybe a year, subjectively, and even then it wasn't long enough to touch him. A hug, a hello kiss, and Wade had to go. He says things sometimes about once being young and pretty and charming, but the face Nate sees in the dark is always the one who understands pain and horror and comes out smiling. “Because I assure you, you can't surprise me.”

Nathan's fingers, both the flesh and techno-organic, skirt at the edge of the mask. This Wade's been unmasked before, but never by Nathan. Not yet. He savors it, tugging it over scarred cheeks, a nose, eyes but no eyebrows, and it's Wade. Constantly healing, textured skin; hard eyes, but still the hazel Nathan knows, too often looking at Nathan to plead for something inane; the cheekbones Nathan could draw from memory. 

Nate smiles, and it's not disarming because Wade's not used to people liking the way he looks. That's an Askani'son affliction, he said, the last time Nathan had seen him. If Nathan was a special kind of crazy, at least it liked Wade's.

“What kind of sick fuck taught you that you can just go around unmasking people? The Scooby crew?”

“You do,” says Nathan. This might be freeing, to just tell him. “In the future. I'm a time traveler.”

That sounded better in his head. 

Wade laughs. “Nice one. And this is supposed to be some bullshit. I'm young and impressionable, and I don't take kindly to being used like this !?”

“You know who I am.” Wade does. He will. Time's different.

“An alias. A codename. That's not exactly knowable.”

“You're thirty-four,” Nate points out. He's always thirty-four, even when he's several centuries old. He insists. “That's young and impressionable?”

For them, it was, but Wade doesn't know that yet.

Nate's going to wife him. He wants that moment when Wade's hard edges give Nathan a foothold in. Wants to know when he goes from this to the man who would confuse him all over his timeline. But right now, he kisses Wade again (because Nate missed him) and also knees Wade in the balls (because he doesn't wear a cup and Nathan has to go check on his men).

“I'm getting extremely mixed messages here!” He struggles against his bonds, and while Nathan can't go into his head and make him sleep, just for a little, he knows the best ways to tie Wade up and hide his guns and swords. 

He can get Simon and Garfunkel back later. 

“Behave,” he calls, bracing for the lost cause that is, but sometimes it works, if only because Wade talks to himself for an hour. “And I won't send you back in pieces.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not completely happy with how I've been organizing this fic so far, so it might get a final overhaul later? But I absolutely love this chapter.

Deadpool has another name: Wade. Nate learns it when Wade manages get himself decapitated right in front of Nathan.

A thud, and the blood is so red—it's so much, and Deadpool's headless body stays upright and defies gravity until it topples over to the side, Deadpool's _head_ at its feet. It's over. 

Nate's damn well fucked up his whole life and timeline because he was reckless. He waits to be blinked out of existence or something equally dramatic. At least the assassin is dead, and Deadpool had been so certain that his _two_ swords could cut better than the assassin's one. 

Nathan feels out with his telepathy. There's no other presences around, just him and the shadow-shifting-spikiness of the imprint of Deadpool's shielding. Whatever he used to repel telepaths must still be on.

“Hey, could you do me a favor?” he hears, and it must be shock or grief or something because that's Deadpool's voice—and the voice in Nathan's head that always sounds like him, a little, that goads him on, says, _He's always been a dead man_. 

“Yes?” 

“Roll me over to my neck? I hate having to grow everything back when I've got a perfectly good body right there. A Wade Wilson original.”

“Wade,” Nathan repeats, the name slow on his tongue. 

“Baby, when you say my name like that, you know I didn't forget a pouch for you.”

That makes no sense. Slowly, Nathan picks up Deadpool's head, still dripping with blood, and he unwisely covers where his mouth is with his palm. Deadpool spits. He bites. He shouts without lungs. 

Well. Okay. That's how Nathan has to reconsider everything he thought he knew about Wade. Why is he saving Nathan Dayspring? Is it a chore? Is it a job? Was his banter ever serious?

He has to look. Nathan has a strong stomach, but where the cut is, the flesh is undulating and alive, and this is the kind of thing that the clan healers would yell at him for, but Nate spits in the cut and presses Deadpool's head to his severed neck. 

Wade yelps. “Okay, that's nastier than I thought you'd be. But I can't say I don't like it.”

Nate doesn't let go, not until he sees the join heal over in blotchy patches, and even then, he runs a thumb over the thin pulse of Deadpool's neck. A healing factor. A power. This is Wade's. The question comes unbidden: “What does it take to kill you?”

“You know, much more than a little decapitation,” he jokes, and maybe he isn't immortal. Maybe Deadpool only has a certain number of lives, and he's used two up on Nate, but he's so cavalier about it that it can't be the case.

Once again, he's stumped Nathan.

Wade waves as he goes away in a flash of blue light. 

Sometimes Wade calls him “Cable,” but only when they're alone. He calls Nate other names, too: sweet ones and ones that are insults but even sweeter; secret ones like Summers that sink into Nathan with a rightness; odd ones like ; odd ones like Priscilla and Charlie and Josh that make Nathan wonder if he's really gone senile in his old age. 

Except he's been like that since they've met. 

Wade doesn't stay because he can't. _He doesn't want to_ , and so Nathan never has to deal with the thought that he'd never see Deadpool's face except in the dead of night when he's not thinking about the tricks of the world. 

There's an old bunker that shows up on a scout's debrief. The scout says they felt something, but since they aren't a strong telepath, it's enough to say there's something alive in there, and only one. There might be water. It might be a stray animal. It's a pretty safe bet to check out. It's just luck of the draw that Nathan is on this one. 

The bunker's sealed. Nathan takes his psimitar and blasts it open. He has three of his clanmates at his back. He can handle a stray. 

“Ain't you ever heard of knocking,” comes an irritated, raspy, and familiar voice. His face breaks out into a smile, and blithely, Nate knows why he wears a recognizable mask now. 

He'd be recognized either way. The scarring is extensive, and Nate wonders if any of it is sensitive, if he could run his fingertips across that scarred scalp and find nerve endings. 

“Nathan Askani'son Summers,” he says, low and reverent. Nathan's stomach sinks. He's never heard Deadpool sound like that. Ever. Like he's one of the faithful; his brand of belief in Nathan has always been something else, sometimes tempered by anger and fondness and ridicule. Then Wade gets all into his personal space, pulls him closer and kisses Nathan. He kisses Nate like he knows him, and it isn't hungry, it's welcoming. Surveying. Nathan's first instinct is to bite, to lick in, to grapple.

Nathan's second reflex is to pull away and punch him.

So he does. 

“What I'd do this time, Nate-baby?” Wade rubs his jaw. “I know my breath's bad, but yours ain't that fresh either.”

Tetherblood snickers behind Nathan, and he loves that man like a brother, but he will let Deadpool shoot him. Even if he doesn't look armed, he probably has two antique guns shoved somewhere unmentionable.

This is the first time he's seen Wade without Nathan's life being in imminent danger. It's a novelty. Wade puts his hands on his hips. He doesn't quite look the same as the last time. He seems duller, thinner, probably more sallow. His scarred skin still contorts as he speaks.

“Seriously! That was a perfectly good ominous door—oh, hi Nate's confused metal eyebrow. Have I told you it's like a band of steel wool? No? How'd you find me? Saves me the trouble of finding you.”

Nathan notices how he moves. Gingerly. He's old. Older than Nathan could have guessed by the way he moved, but not injured. Older than when he gallivanted off saving Nathan's life at all hours, likely. Wade's healing factor might have slowed down or he's been beaten past its limits. There's lines on his face. “Blind luck. Were you looking for me?”

“Yeah, aren't I always?” Wade says this softly. Too tenderly. “What are you in for?”

“Supplies. Are there any?"

“There's no food, but there's metal and ammo, some cloth, and a fuck ton of water purifier tablets,” Wade lists. “Still good, those. I ate three yesterday.”

“How long have you been here?” he wonders. What Wade is doing here makes the thoughts in Nathan's head churn. If he's here, and he remembers everything so far, that means he lived through everything Nathan has worked to prevent and still ends up at the same place. It's enough to drive a man to madness. 

“You've got a thinking face on, ” Wade accuses. “No thinking.” 

Nathan wants any explanation. He wants to know what he did wrong. Wade being here is an example of his failures, isn't it?

“Am I just here for damn exposition?” Wade mumbles to himself before continuing without an answer. “What I am isn't a knock on you. You have to be here—this future can't be erased. For any changes to stick, this future had to exist to make you this big damn hero. Fighting Big Blue is extremely above my pay grade, but when he took over, I knew that if I could stick around, I had meeting you again to look forward to. I just had to wait.”

Wade's eyes are big and hazel, and somehow, they get bigger. He cracks a smile. That was either one of the most romantic or suicidally optimistic things Nate's ever heard. 

Nathan exhales. Oh. “Well, was it worth it?”

"Yeah, always," he says, and the corners of this mouth turn up at whatever thought he's having. Then Wade stretches, and the pop of air through his joints is as loud as a gunshot. "It's not like I plan anything if you're around. No one's said I wear the pants in this marriage--except you know, your tailor, who loves me because I keep buying pants. I figure you'll let me know if you need me around. It's not like I'm going to stop saving your life now. I'm invested. I gotta get my return out of it. Maybe especially because I already know that they're gonna get someone much shorter than me to play you in the movies." 

Nathan inhales. “So, are you going to help pack?”

Tetherblood and Adam-Eleven have so many roiling thoughts in their heads that Nathan has to tune them out. They have hands. They can take anything that's useful. They can stop snickering and threatening to tell Aliya. 

He brings Wade back to their base. Nathan knows he can be trusted, and he will pull the card that he's the florking Dayspring if needed.

Also, Wade speaks trade-common and Askani pretty well, even if his accent is odd. Nate supposes he learns. 

“< Yellow accent >,” he insists. “< Yellow word bubbles even if there's no color in a text document >. Also it's just English, no second e.”

"Well, he's certainly not what I was expecting," Aliya says. He can't say no to that. Wade's never what he expects. Nathan would say he's not the type to drag home strays, but his whole clan is strays. 

The Askani don't believe in divorce. You must be quick and decisive and prepared to survive the end of the world, and the vows you make _are_. So she can't stop being his wife. 

“I don't want to stop being your wife,” she says, and it's almost like she's a telepath. “But why is this engagement of yours taking twenty times as long as ours?”

Nathan can't rightfully answer that one.

Aliya goes straight for it. She comes up to Wade and says, “So you're the one asking my husband to marry him. ”

Wade leans in and says something to her ear; they're too far away for Nathan to gleam anything, except with his mind; Aliya doesn't appreciate his eavesdropping, and Wade's mind is... spiky. Dangerous. Something for another time. Aliya immediately bursts into laughter. That's probably not good for Nathan. 

But Aliya doesn't move out of their tent. 

Wade doesn't move _in_ , either, and Nathan tries to hide the part of him that would have been relieved to have it all figured out for him. 

The thing Nathan hasn't learned, in the years of life-saving, adrenaline-fueled encounters is how actively annoying Wade is. He's like this all the time. Later, he will realize that this is the Wade that's mellowed with age. 

The Dayspring gets complaints. Most of them are about Wade's attitude or the way he barges into conversations. Wade babbles. He gets on people's nerves. He stares off into the distance and speaks in tongues, and he warns every psi not to try to touch his mind. He's good with the younger members and teaches them how to hold a knife, how to deliver a punch. (“Okay, so kidneys are painful. Hit here. Oof. No, lower for maximum pain. Eeee—there.”) 

Deadpool is useless on kitchen duty (“I don't need to strictly eat, and it was edible. Mostly"). He can field strip and clean just about every weapon they find in a cache. It's a balance. 

When Nate takes Wade on a mission, the complaints about him not pulling his weight go away, but they're wary about the predator in their midst. Seeing him in action is seeing a natural disaster. He's indiscriminate, so long as he knows the right direction to go. 

Afterwards … He's fine. The Askani'son has him. The whole clan shuts up about Wade being there, but Nate's not sure he'll ever be one of them. He's his own man, and he barges into the Dayspring's personal space like he owns it. It makes the devout uncomfortable. It makes Clan Chosen uneasy. Wade takes Nathan's space like he's owed it. 

Like he was given it. 

Nathan lets him and maybe that's permission enough. 

The second (first) time Nate says yes, Wade has just betrayed the X-Men for him and shot two of the most annoying ones in the back. Nathan's proud of him.

“You did it for me,” Nathan breathes. That's the man that saves his skin, well-hidden beneath a crackly, murderous exterior. That's the man he sees. Then louder, he teases, “You believe in me. ”

“I don't,” which is a bold and petulant statement for a man that Nathan's got upside down by his telekinesis. He looks. The black and bronze suit is extremely flattering, honestly. There's a lot of moving pieces, and the X-Men are still trying to get Nathan to stop being so threatening. Still, there's Wade.

“You do!” It feels good. Nate thinks about how easily the words come to mind. He repeats them, for the first time; he asks Wade to marry him. It feels right, and Nate could smack himself for thinking Wade initiated this. This is where it starts, and Nate thinks he's only halfway around the circle. The feel of him under Nate's telekinesis is just as good as skin-to-skin contact. 

“What?” Wade says, frowning. “I speak fluent brackets except when I don't. What was that?”

“Askani. It's the language of my traditions,” Nate says. He grins and lets his glowing eye flash a bit brighter. “We're married, now.”

“Sure, we're married,” and Wade just nods. He agreed, so it's done. Nate feels warm. “I got a key to your fancy island and everything.”

“Exactly.” They're married. The thought luxuriates in Nathan's head. No wonder Wade took particular pleasure in telling Nathan this, often. It's fun, and there's a little gurgle of positive emotion nesting itself in Nathan's throat.

It's enough to buoy the extremely necessary lecture that Nathan's prepared. 

Also, this isn't the greatest time to break the news to Nathan's father. Nathan's a little busy fighting a battle to be a newlywed, but that's the story of his life. The Silver Surfer is one hell of a surprise guest. 

Wade does everything Nathan's ever trusted him to: save him. He didn't mean to leave Wade a widower at this juncture, but he figures if the merc doesn't want to be, he'll find a way to pull Nate through. He always does.

“So where's the honeymoon-slash-thank-you-for-being-a-pal-and-also-my-life-sex?” Wade asks, when he's truly done it. He's saved and brought Nate back, and he's still not yet the Wade that spends too much of his time saving Nate from his own life. Maybe this is where that starts. “Yours or mine? I'm definitely thinking yours.”

Wade has his own apartments on Providence, even though he spends most of his time in Nathan's quarters. Nathan has the better bed. It's closer. He closes his eyes and feels the island and he knows it's just a shadow of what his powers used to be, but he could have buoyed it up a little higher from the feeling. 

When Nate kisses Wade, Wade's surprised. It's not a demanding kiss, just a simple one, a peck for no discernable reason. Nate's kissed a lot of Wade Wilsons by now. 

“Holy rat on a stick,” Wade exclaims. “Are we like— _married_ , married?”

“I doubt any court will recognize an Askani ceremony,” Nate adds, dryly. 

Apparently, he was unclear. To be fair, he was preparing for a lobotomy. 

“Excuse me, you didn't get down on one shiny metal knee replacement and ask me. I didn't get to wear a white dress!”

“Do you want those things?” Nathan asks. He's not sure what they have to do with weddings at all, honestly, and it shows on his face, surely. 

“I'm planning a big wedding. I want the biggest cake—at least three strippers need to jump out of it—and like, all the X-Men and Avengers and everyone we know needs to come. So I guess we … have to wait until they're not angry at you.”

Technically, Nate doesn't add, they're pretty much already here. Wade might never get it out of his head if Nate points they all technically crashed their marriage day.

Nathan nods. It doesn't matter to him. They're already married, anyway. It's soothing to hear Wade ramble, his head against Nathan's metal side. 

“Always,” Nathan says, after it's quiet enough. He repeats it in Askani. He makes that vow now and always.

Wade repeats him, and the moment is quiet and beautiful up until Wade licks his hand and sticks it down Nathan's pants. 

The Askani don't believe in divorce. He never tells Wade that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nathan Dayspring, ~35: I don't want to deal with feelings or anything ever pls can my wife and my time traveling fiance just tell me what to feel so I can just focus on shooting things


	5. Chapter 5

Things would be so much easier if there were someone telling Nathan what to do. He stares at the shield in his hands, a remnant of a different age, and his own scuffed reflection is clueless right back at him. 

Aliya and Wade aren't friends. But they're not not friends, either. It's making Nathan's life very difficult. In fact, they are talking right now, Wade punctuating his sentences with his hands, and it would be so much better if they were talking about what to do with Nathan, but they're talking about … fashion? Maybe? Maybe just about night patrols. Wade's been on a lot of them lately, mostly because he barely needs sleep.

Tetherblood takes the opportunity to laugh at him. “You married the first pretty girl you ever knew,” he says, and his smile is insufferable. At least he brings a ration pack for Nathan. “And this is your penance.”

Nathan tears it open with his teeth to avoid muttering. What does that even mean? He doesn't regret marrying Aliya—and no one could have predicted Wade, who's saved Nathan's life a dozen or more times, _proposed_ a good majority of those times, and kissed him all of once. Nathan's waiting for a judgement or an ultimatum (Aliya's teasing doesn't count ) or an arrangement to be given to him. 

He'd follow it to the letter. Wade just happened to Nathan, crept up on him subtly. Aliya, Nathan wanted to impress right away. They're in completely different castes. 

He's not sure if they want him to pick one of them or if he needs to work out an elaborate schedule or even if he should have them both. If he could. That feels like a thing that Nathan shouldn't be able to have: two impossible people who he'd trust more than his life to. He can't say anything about these feelings to Tetherblood because doesn't want to be ridiculed into his grave. 

“Well, my options were what, her or you?” Nathan smiles. “And she's much prettier than you.” And a telepath. 

“Well, apparently, the guy that shows up and saves your ass sometimes was also an option." Tetherblood's curly hair is pulled into a bun, taut like the line of his mouth. He's just sour he missed the opportunity to rag on Nathan about it. This is why only Aliya got the details. “Who is he? Why'd he end up in a bunker?”

“Wade,” he starts. How does one even describe Wade? They've seen him fight. They've gotten over the shock of his healing factor. “Xavier only knows. He's just Wade. I—he asked me, and he saved my life. ”

“Hell if I know why he did either. I wouldn't be caught dead married to you,” Tetherblood agrees. “I'm not the one bringing home husbands no one knew about.”

“I didn't say _yes_. And I told Aliya.” He hates that his business never stays his business. Really, this was unnecessary. Those are the relevant facts. 

“But you didn't say no? Are we going to have to see him try to woo you over? Because that shit was painful the first time.”

Tetherblood might call him on his shit, but Wade looks at Nathan like he's fragile. Breakable. Wade might have already won Nate over, but that doesn't mean he's ready to say yes. The moment Nathan decides what he wants, he has to do something about it. 

They look over in silence to see that Wade's gotten distracted and is doing a series of very acrobatic looking tricks with his swords. Tetherblood whistles. “He's got a nice ass. Shame about his... Everything else. Man, your problems are ridiculous.”

Nathan sighs. “Thanks, T-Blood.” 

Most of Nathan's problems are of the soul-crushingly important and deadly variety. The fate of the world. The problems inherent when you're a demi-god among your own people. The other half of Nathan's problems is named Wade Wilson, who does not treat him like a demi-god. He also does not treat Nathan like a courting man. 

Wade thinks he can barge into any space Nathan's in, at any given time. Which might be a habit that's saved Nathan's life, but sneaking up to someone when they're taking a piss absolutely results in embarrassing situations for everyone. 

All he wants is attention, and specifically, he wants Nate's attention. Wade makes innuendo all the time but hasn't so much as tried to hold Nathan's hand; it's confusing. 

It takes a while for Nathan to ask. Nathan feels like not making a habit of having complicated conversations on crumbling rooftops while recon, but needs must.

“You're a little young for me,” Wade says while shoving his hands into his pouches. “Hah, understatement.”

Nathan blinks in disbelief. That's not where he thought this conversation was going. 

“You're in your prime, too. Hng. I'll try not invite more reasons why your parents would want to kill me.”

“You knew the X-Men?” Somehow, this is the only thought that makes it out of Nathan's mouth. More reasons? Deadpool knew Nathan's parents? Nathan's long learned the truth, but only Mother Askani could have been said to know them. They're too far into the past.

And Deadpool was a time traveler. Oh.

“Babe, I was an X-Man. An Avenger, too.” Wade's grin is wolfish. “You know it's kinda weird that your wife named herself after your parents?”

Nathan shrugs. Aliya has the right. Jenskot is a strong name. Wade can stop with the life-changing information anytime he wants, but Nathan, being Nathan, has to know. “What were they like?”

“Well, you got your mom's powerset, but how cool would it have been for you to also get heat vision?”

And that's how Nathan learns that Dayspring is just another way to say _Summers_. Wade tells his stories, and Nathan closes his eyes and breathes. There are other nights when he'll listen and fall asleep to the endless river of words that Wade somehow barely contains.

Wade worms his way into Nathan's heart slowly and surely. The first time Nathan kisses him is to shut him up, and Wade tastes a little disgusting, like dirt and the remnants of whatever chemical he unwisely put in his mouth. It doesn't stop him from a second kiss. 

When Aliya dies, something in Nathan breaks. They will mourn her. They will burn her on a pyre. Tyler's missing. They comb the tunnels for the fallen. 

Deadpool is paler than usual and quiet, and he's never respectful. He doesn't meet Nathan's eyes. He doesn't even flinch when Nathan takes a swing at him, not caring that there's already been one battle fought here. 

“You knew!” Wade had to have known. Nate's first blow hits Wade's flank, but he slips away, twisting and winding.

“My memory isn't what it used to be,” Wade coughs. Nate hits hard. Still, Wade takes in heaving breaths. “I didn't know when, okay? All of you die, eventually. It's so hard to keep track. But fuck, if you're going to come at me, come at me!”

Then Wade gets up and launches himself at Nate, pointy knees digging into metal and flesh. They've got no weapons between them, and while Nathan may like his ranged weapons, he's got a body that can brawl. 

“You should have told me!” Because there was no reason not to. Because Nathan needed to know. He kicks, and Wade twists away and then he bites because Wade's never been afraid to fight dirty. 

“Even you die! Even you, Nate!” Then Wade mumbles in pain because he tried to bite techno-organic corded metal and loses a tooth. He spits.

All of you, he said. Wade's lived a thousand years. He doesn't ask Wade if he's there when Nathan dies. He has to be, doesn't he? Nathan's angry—what's the timeline worth if his family isn't safe? 

Nate stumbles. He angles his left side towards Wade. He charges. “And what does it matter?!”

“Damnit, Nate. This is not a healthy coping mechanism! And this is coming from me!”

Wade has age and experience, but Nathan has size and power, and he pins Wade to the ground easier than anyone can think. What was the point of him talking so much if none of it was useful? Nathan's hands easily wrap around his throat, and he's still fucking talking. Nathan isn't hearing it.

He hears a meaty squelch, feels the bones in Wade's neck give under the pressure of Nate's hands. Wade's blood on his hands. Aliya's blood on his hands. Blood and the fluttering, fading pulse of eternity. 

Silence.

Wade's a survivor. It's too quiet.

Nathan sobs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wade: look I'm old now, it takes me a while to get it back up


	6. Chapter 6

That Wade can come back doesn't fix things. They say time can do that. 

"I'm going to say murder's a better coping mechanism than suicide," Wade says, and he drapes himself over Nathan's shoulder. "Trust me. Neither of them is that great, though."

Hope doesn't say a word to Nathan. She thinks it at him instead, and people with psi in-laws learn how to make their thoughts pointed and direct. She prepares Aliya's body in silence.

Despite what she thinks, Wade doesn't get special treatment. They left him behind because Nate can't account for him in closed spaces, and so the only way to make Hope shoot him with fewer oceans of grief and anger and lots of it misdirected at Wade is to push harder.

So Nathan has to send him out more, and usually, he has to send him alone.

If something wasn't dangerous enough, Wade finds a way to make it more dangerous. He specializes in the impossible because he can, and he is messy and irreverent and Deadpool. Nate knew that he'd be fine, but this is how he learns that Wade will always come back.

“You've got to go back and save the world,” Wade says, when Nate's hair goes completely white. It was coming. They're planning, and Nathan's people are so few against the Canaanites.

Nathan looks at him and hesitates. “I can't leave the clan.”

“Bullshit.” Wade's always good to call him out. "We'll be fine. Don't leave me in charge, and we'll be fine. You need to go back soon."

"We've got a time machine—" Nate wants to ask Wade to come with him. The quieter part of him doesn't think he'll stick with the clan. He's tempted to ask. He can make a convincing argument about it. Wade pre-empts him.

“I'm then, too,” he chides, gently. “You won't miss me. Trade me in for the younger, shinier model."

Wade pulls him down, hands on Nathan's face. Nate didn't even know that Wade could kiss goodbye—it's always been hello for them. It's slow and lingering, but not sweet. There's a sharpness, a break to it, and Nathan can't stop himself from picking up the surface of Wade's mind. 

"Give me a kiss hello when you see me next,” he says. “I bet it's a good one.”

Unlike the first time Nathan wanted to go back in time, the equipment doesn't explode or try to kill him. But, always, Wade's there just to make sure. 

The past isn't anything like Nathan expects. He calls himself Cable because it fits, and because Wade and Apocalypse knew him as Cable, and that he remembers, very dimly, his father saying he must be the link between the future and the past. A cable. He is the lifeline.

So naturally, Nathan is rappelling down a mountain when he sees Wade again. Wade deflects an astonishingly fast spinning blade headed for Nathan's anchoring line. It clatters into the distance instead of cutting the cable and leaving Nathan to the mercy of adrenaline-fueled telekinesis to cushion a very long fall without a proper hold.

Nathan catches Wade before _he_ falls. He clings. He's solid and muscled and real, and the bright red of Wade's spandex shows every line. ”Ayyyy-ack!”

There's a few moments before Nate thinks he's secure enough to go in for a kiss. He has so much to do that he can't let himself sit around and miss someone. But he indulges, sometimes, before meditation. 

“That's a hell of a hello,” Wade says, and he's out of breath. “Hi, Cable.”

“Wade. It's been a while." Too long, and by the situation, Wade's not native to this time either. One day, he'll pinpoint the Wade that's followed him around. Today, he hopes Wade can leave _tomorrow_.

Nate knows he'll say yes twice to Wade, not that it matters. The first (second) time is in a future Nathan wonders if he can ever return to, if it's one he should ever return to. He can't imagine himself as a clan elder, surrounded by the next generation of Clan Chosen, Tetherblood's adopted brood climbing over him like training equipment. The battle has to end sometime. Nathan just never seems him outside of it. They never say anything about retirement. There's always another battle. 

There's always _a_ Wade. By now, Nathan appreciates that he always treats him the same way; Wade is a constant in a sea of confusing past and timelines, and also, he's up for a spar as much as screw when Nathan needs to get the energy out. 

They don't stay in the same time and place for long, and Nate wonders if his past, and Wade's far-distant future is the only place they get to keep one another.

He doesn't wait for Wade. Nathan doesn't think he's the waiting type. The people he takes to bed aren't replacements or placeholders; Nate is a psi, and he can live in his memories as much as he wants if he's inclined. None of them look like Aliya. No one can look like Wade. He doesn't. There's a world to save, and Nate doesn't want a new clan but he might need a team.

A man's got to eat. Mercenary work doesn't ask questions. Does Nate strictly need it when he can manipulate the power of compound interest with a bit of time travel? No. 

Wade's a mercenary, though. The question is, when?

And somehow, here, in the 20th century, Nathan finds Aliya in Ty—Genesis's hideout. She's young and whole and alive, and he just wants to touch her. She calls him Cable, and she doesn't know who he is.

It hurts. 

She's beautiful and unmarred by the pallor of death. Is this what Wade feels, looking into Nathan's past? It hurts, and the moment she knows who Nathan is, she can't take her eyes off him, either, trying to figure out what renders her larger-than-life beloved Dayspring to a melancholy old soldier like Nate Summers. 

Nate walks willingly to his past with her, and he doesn't know if he can reach her. If he can hold her, kiss her, one last time. The hell with it. He knows he doesn't mind.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Wade says, arriving dramatically in a flash of blue light. He's in his red and black Deadpool suit. He has his mask—or a version of it, anyway, and his swords. “But you might need a hand, Cable?”

Nathan and Aliya both turn, guilty-looking, as they pull away quickly from a near-kiss. He wonders if Wade feels like this, kissing Nate's younger self. This Aliya hasn't even married him yet. This Aliya hasn't even met Wade yet. Huh. Does she realize who Wade is? 

“Much appreciated,” Nathan murmurs. There's a part of him that doesn't appreciate him interrupting, but they need to get down to business. 

Aliya jumps in the trees to save their asses. 

Wade goes, slowly, “You could have kissed her. Go for it. Though—where's mine if you're swapping spit?”

It's enough to put a smile on Nathan's face. He presses a short kiss to the top of Wade's mask, wordlessly brisk. Wade startles to attention and he stares at Nathan. “Definitely a squishy marshmallow.”

Nate doesn't have time to wonder what half-thoughts that was answering. It's also enough time for Aliya to take the beast-construct-soldier down. 

“We're saving the Dayspring,” Aliya intones, and she's not even out of breath. Nate wishes she was at his side during some of his rough jobs. It would definitely be easier. 

He misses her. 

“Oh, my absolute favorite thing to do,” Wade gushes. It might sound sarcastic, but he's earnest. Nathan knows that now. “It's the highlight of my days.”

He has to save his younger self. From Stryfe. What a world. Wade acts like he does this every day. Maybe he does. 

Nate says goodbye to Aliya, after. He has to. She has Nathan Dayspring to return to. She barely knows Cable. "< Forever > ," she says to him, half a thought and half a breath.

He knows what it means. She doesn't know, but it will be their marriage vow. They're forever. Nathan won't cry. He won't. He has to walk away. 

Wade has been hanging back at the tree line, trying not to listen. He's failed at it, but at least he tried. “I'm just your ride back. You could stay."

“No, you're not,” Nate admits. “And we can't always go back to where we came from.”

“No, we can't,” Wade agrees. “But you should have kissed the girl.”

“That's what you'd do, old man,” he jokes, a little twinkle in his eye. “Not all of us go around kissing young unmarried people.”

Wade gets it.

For a moment, Nathan's sure he's not going to kiss him, but then Wade rolls up his mask and grabs Nate. 

“You're right. I should stick to the married ones,” and Wade's lips are chapped, and he tastes like the wrong side of a sack of bile, but Nathan wouldn't trade it for the world. It still hurts, but give it time to hurt differently. 

“< Always >,” Nathan says. It's their vow. Aliya and he are < Forever >, but Wade is an < Always >.

“< Always >,” Wade repeats, and he takes Nate back to the past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cable #25 with Wade instead of Domino if that section looked familiar.


	7. Chapter 7

Always is not forever. Nate Summers, of all people, knows it. 

At first he thinks it's Stryfe, even one that thinks he's Nathan, but he has Professor and the same amount of teenage bravado the Dayspring should, and the tremble in his voice means worries about the same things. Nathan knows alternate versions of himself, and this is one of them--their timelines are two split trunks twining around each other--unnatural but nevertheless structurally sound.

There's a damn bomb in Nathan's arm waiting to be set off, and this kid pointing his gun won't even appreciate it. Nate waits for him to finish his monologue because not everyone will give him that courtesy, and he needs to get that trained out of him.

Just fucking shoot, already.

Wade is absolutely wasted on this teenage fuck-up. 


End file.
